Race Day was today

And I think we did pretty well!

The first trial our car went a little to the right, and hit a group of people which may have somewhat affected it (I still question why we weren't doing this alone, the people only distracted us)

The second time we accidentally had the balloon twisted too much so it didn't go.

The morning before, though, the balloon managed to go a total of 44 feet, which is 13.2m

I think we may have gotten second or third farthest distance though.

Either way, Marlon and I had a bunch of fun in this contest. Besides the challenge of building a successful balloon car, we also got a chance to become acquainted with our future classmates.

I still have to create the booklet, but it appears that this will be our final post. Thank you for following our journey these past three weeks, and we hope you enjoyed it. :]

Does this thing have a spoiler option? I have no clue.

Either way, you're in for a REALLY long post, so get ready =D

Marlon brought in his car today. It works brilliantly, although it still turns a bit to the right even after some adjustments. However, we're going replace his wheels with mine since my axles are more stable.

I thought I had forgotten my camera, so I drew a sketch of the balloon car.

Then I found my camera, so....

The picture was drawn from memory, by the way. I think I did it pretty accurately.

Anyways, we got a chance to record a video. It's fast and goes pretty far, but I'm still waiting for the trial runs on it.

I was planning on posting some of my robot drawings from today, too, but I have to go somewhere in five minutes, so I'll upload them in a different post. Race Day is tomorrow- see you all there and may the odds be ever in your favour :]

ETA: Marlon, I left a comment for you

The Competition is On!

Remind me to replace my straws- they're too weak to sustain the amazing power of the balloon.

Anyway, today Marlon and I brought in our cars. It appears that we'll be using his- why?

It can go 7m in two seconds. I'm still waiting for an image and trial runs, but as soon as they are given to me I will post them here.

Lastly, a shoutout to Royce, who is forever alone today.



Trial Run Video

Decided to get this video up and running :]

The requirement is to have two trial runs in one continuous shot, but I dislike handling the camera and blowing the balloon so I did have to pause them. The videos are taking an exceptional amount of time to upload, so I'll only post the last trial.

Please enjoy! :)

Bigger Trial Area Needed...

I was able to conduct two more trial runs.

One I did in the same place as I did yesterday, to see if it would run straighter. (It definitely did, just went straight to the wall!)

After that I started in the kitchen, which is about five metres from one end to another. Once again, the car hit the wall of the living room with a thunk, and ended with 783.75cm.

The highest speed was still yesterday's 107cm/s, and I think at this point it depends on the size of the balloon. The balloon I'm using now is a temporary one, I'm hoping to get a really big one tomorrow to use instead. I'm also hoping that said really big balloon will make the car hit at least ten metres!

I'll update with more trial runs when I get the new balloon. :]

Success! =)

It works! My three-wheel design worked!

I had two wheels in front, and one in the back (the back one is supported with Knex pieces and kabob sticks) and the balloon is attached to a straw that goes through the foam and propels it from the ground.

In terms of trial runs, this car works a lot better than the previous one. I got rid of one CD and 54 square inches of foam, making it much lighter. My only concern is that it pulls a bit to the left, but I'll be fixing the back wheel today as I noticed I alligned it incorrectly.

Trial runs:

(The first one I accidentally forgot to convert into cm, since I was measuring in inches)

Because of the turning issue, it kept hitting the dining table.

After leaning it to the right a bit, it went the full way, across the hall and the living room, and hit the wall with a thud. Clearly I'm going to need a bigger trial area!

I'll update with more trial runs after the car is fixed. I'll most likely be taking it outside to see how it performs.



Aw, it's so cute!

But, cute as it may be, our tiny little playing card car does not work well.

Don't get me wrong, it's wonderfully, wonderfully fast.

But it only goes in circles...

It's comical watching it go and spin around (I'll have to post a video eventually) but unfortunately we need a balloon that goes nice and straight.

And while I could fix this one, I have another car that needs some fixing so I'll work on that one first.

*NOTE* The Magic Card had a merciful death. ;)



Design, Design, Design...

Trial and error, indeed.

Marlon and I are working feverishly to get some new designs that hopefully work.

He's working on his.

I'm trying to fix the mess of a car that I made yesterday.

I also just found this video which shows how to make a balloon car with a playing card, so I'll be trying that as well (except with some modifications, as they used toy wheels and we're not allowed to.

I have no clue what Marlon's cooking up (teamwork for the win!) nor does he know what I'm doing.

We'll see on Monday, which is when our video should be up.

Until then, I can't wait to see the outcome. :]

Bad News

Unfortunately, our car was a flop.

Not a really big flop, but it didn't work out quite well as we wanted it to.

Our best distance was only 330cm (although it probably would've been more if it hadn't hit the fridge) and I failed at timing by myself so I doubt any of them are accurate.

Our best average speed was 28.9cm/s, which was the first trial. (We didn't have the time data for the 330cm one)

Besides the fact that our car (which I discovered runs perfectly well on just the one middle balloon) was a flop, and our timing skills were a flop, our luck flopped too.

Indeed- 3 of the wheels did fall off at some point. I glued the first one on, but these two I didn't bother with. Why? Because the middle balloon popped, which made them fall off.

Clearly we are in the midst of changing our design yet again, this time a little more drastically. I think that we should go tricycle-style, with one wheel in front and two at the back. The front wheel should raise the front, and we'll see if the difference of having a slanted straw (pushing against the floor) makes a difference. We'll also make the front more triangular, for aerodynamics.

Lastly, we're switching out the balloon style. We'll replace the two balloons with one extravagantly huge balloon. A HUGE one. It doesn't matter how big since the wheels won't restrict it. But yeah. Enormous. Gigantic. Tremendous.

Now to go find one.

Thank you for your sympathy if we did happen to recieve any. We can't wait to see you again- hopefully with a faster, lighter and better car. :]

Just for lols: A picture of our poor car. :'(

One last thing- we know you must be itching to do that whole "comment on everyone's blog with ideas/help/opinions etc." thing, so for our blog here's your chance. Do you have any ideas on how to help us fix... well... that ↑ ↑ ↑? Thanks again! :]

    



Drumroll please...

And here is our balloon car!!

Sorry it's a little hard to see. Anyway, after going through about 6 sticks of glue and who knows how many small burns, we are finally finished! A couple experimental runs were done (not trial runs) and we've realized that it really depends on how we blow up the balloons. They appear to choose when they want to work.

We'll be back soon with the trial runs! See you later ;]



MATERIALS!! (and a new design)

Yes, I know. We're evil for switching the design. Again.

We were planning on using these adorable caterpillar balloons, but I discovered that they release minimal air and deflate within about two seconds, which is really bad since they take up a lot of space- 2ft x 1/2 ft. Ouch.

Anyway, instead we opted to use these awesome colourful balloons that I have.

Deflation takes a solid 5-6 seconds (one balloon is slightly bigger than the other; we plan to use two) plus they're fairly small too- I can fit two of them in the space it takes one of those catepillar balloons.

If you're wondering how we plan you use two, it's simple. With straws! =D

The balloons will be one in front of another. The front one will have a long straw taking the air to the back of the car, where it will be tied to the back balloon's straw. Double power- yay!

In terms of our other materials:

YOU WOULD NEED:

Insulation foam- we opted for this. It has all the pros of styrofoam, but is sturdier and cleaner.

A balloon pump- we can't blow these epic balloons to save our life, they're too epic for us.

CDs x4- For the wheels!

Knex Pieces- to form the axle.

Colourful balloons x2- I think this one is self-explanitory.

Not pictured:

Straws x3 (or 4)

Hot glue gun (gotta connect those pieces somehow) OR those sticks of glue plus a lighter.

The balloon car should be ready by today, and trial runs should be up either today or tomorrow.

Until then. :]



New Sketch...

Here is the new sketch for our car. I can see right now where it will be edited on the actual thing but for now this is a good guideline for when we begin construction tomorrow.





Brainstorming

   OK, so a lot of research is being done. Besides the actual concept on making the car, my partner and I (or maybe just me) are interested in knowing answers to questions related to the assignment.

Right now? Well, you see this balloon? (It's the one my friend and I were tossing around during lunch today. Here's a link to her blog if you're interested: http://theductmobile.blogspot.ca/)

Anyway, one thing we want to find out is how much energy a balloon this size would release. Whether this would impact the assignment in anyway, we don't know, but it'd be cool to find out, so stay tuned on that.

In terms of our project and the research, Marlon and I are debating over what materials we should use for the body of the car and for the wheels.

Body of the Car:

Option #1: Water Bottles

Pros: Bullet shaped (aerodynamic), light, easy to get

Cons: Ridges are not aerodynamic, hard to manipulate

Option #2: Styrofoam

Pros: Light, easy to manipulate, easy to get, can be shaped

Cons: Messy

We're still working on this- what might happen is we test both and see which performs better, but styrofoam has a slight advantage right now.

Wheels:

Wheels are not a problem for us, we decided to use CDs because:

- They are light

- They turn easily

- They have minimal contact with the ground (less friction)

My partner and I pretty much gave up on balancing the momentum, it overcomplicates the car. We decided to be light, simple and elegant.

We did decide to use a straw though, as we realized it controls the airflow better.

Until next time! We hope to bring you sketches of our new design plus an actual picture of the car :]

Sketches of our Balloon Car

Awesome, here are the sketches of our car. Besides the body and wheels, our main focus is mementum, which we hope to achieve through the use of multiple balloons (details to come)

Thanks for viewing, we hope to post again soon! :]

The Making of our Balloon Car

Hello everyone! It's Julia Solonenka here, along with my partner Marlon Mortilla.

In the next couple of weeks we'll be blogging about the creation of our balloon car, which is for our school assignment. Our company name was chosen for three reasons: 1) Trains are a vehicle, same as cars, 2) We'll have to think a lot about this assignment and 3) Our assignment is based on trial and error, which is similar to the term "train of thought" as both involve thinking of one thing to move onto the next.

We hope you will enjoy our blog. Sketches of our car will be up shortly. :]